Commentary: Kate Crackernuts
My first commentary. It seems so long ago!
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This particular style of tale, with one beautiful and one ugly twin, is relatively rare, save for in some parts of Scandinavia, though the 'king girl, unkind girl' archetype is a common one. But this is certainly not the most interesting detail about the story. What about the evil Queen? What happens to her? And the fairies—why would they force a prince to dance to his death? The girls in The Twelve Dancing Princesses wanted to dance, didn’t they? Where does the story come from? Is it English, Irish, or Scottish? Why are they both called Kate?
What about the evil Queen?
What about her? She disappears from the story the moment Bonny Kate is enchanted, a deus ex machina, if you will. Like many evil mother figures, the Queen’s purpose is to propel the heroine forward, forcing her toward the beginning of her own life and maturation.
It is, however, interesting that the Queen is not punished—rewarding good and punishing evil is a standard, almost expected theme, in fairy tales. Because there are few literary versions of Kate Crackernuts, scholarship is somewhat sparse, and it is difficult to determine if a punishment for the Queen ever existed, and if so, why is was removed. Lang and Jacobs, the earliest English editions, have no record of a punishment for the Queen.
And the fairies—why would they force a prince to dance to his death? The girls in The Twelve Dancing Princesses wanted to dance, didn’t they?
Yes, they did—they also enjoyed the secretive, almost forbidden nature of the activity, declining their father’s questions and believing themselves about discovery. But Kate Crackernuts turns this tale on its head—it’s a prince being forced to dance, and there is nothing lighthearted or pleasurable about it. Surprising as it may seem, this darker idea of the fairies’ dance is quite common in British fairy tales, and the wasting disease has been linked to consumption (tuberculosis).*
Why would the fairies do this? Fairy tales show us the good and the bad, the glamourous and the horrific. Not all magic creatures are pretty and kind; many are cruel and outright vicious. And although these ideas may be frightening at first, fairy tales possess the magic of ‘once upon a time’, casting us into another land, another time, another reality, reassuring us that this type of cruel, at least, cannot happen in our world, our home.**
Why 'Crackernuts'?
The nuts Kate is cracking in the story are probably hazelnuts. A member of the birch family, the hazel tree has long been a symbol of wisdom, protection***, and wishing. The practice of making wishing caps (small crowns woven with hazel twigs) and adorning the hair with hazel twigs was at one time quite common. Divining rods, sometimes known as wishing rods, were most times forked branches of hazel, though apple, beech, and alder were also used. Perhaps most interesting, Halloween Night was once known as ‘Nutcrack Night’ in the UK.
Why are they both called Kate?
Personally, I think it’s to do with the twin nature of the fairy tale, and the twin nature of us as humans. Bonny Kate (called Anne in the Joseph Jacobs’ version), although alive to the evil of the Queen, is an almost passive character, merely a means to an end, while Kate Crackernuts actively seeks her fortune, demonstrating courage and wit. Perhaps Bonny Kate is the passive self, the slumbering maiden awaiting an awakening, akin to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella*. Kate is also an accessible name, the name of a plucky heroine listeners can relate to, derived from Katherine, meaning ‘pure’.
Where does the story come from? Is it English, Irish, or Scottish?
In the words of Maria Tatar, “Fairy tales should never be considered sacred texts. They existed in thousands of versions; there wasn’t one ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.”* I’ve seen Kate Crackernuts attributed as all three; many take the English Joseph Jacobs’ (Katie Crackernuts) version to be the first; Andrew Lang also collected a version of the story in the Orkneys, which was later published in <span style="font-style:italic;">Longman's Magazine</span>; and Yeats recorded a similar story in his Irish Fairy Tales and Folktales. Several versions I’ve read have tended toward more Scottish tellings.
Footnotes:
*Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopaedia of Fairies "Consumption ", Pantheon Books, 1976, p. 80.
**Maria Tatar, Harvard Magazine, ‘The Horror and the Beauty’, p. 38, Harvard Magazine Inc., 2007.
*** Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimm’s Fairy Tales: The Hazel Branch, Wordsworth Editions, Ltd., 1998.
http://www.woodsforall.org/_taldrum/mythology/index.html
References:
Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopaedia of Fairies "Consumption ", Pantheon Books, 1976.
Maria Tatar, Harvard Magazine, ‘The Horror and the Beauty’, p. 38, Harvard Magazine Inc., 2007.
Joan Gould, Spinning Straw Into Gold: What Fairy Tales Reveal About The Transformations In A Woman’s Life, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.